Bright Side: The Sex and the City 2 Experience

Create a film like Sex and the City 2 and there will be consequences. They range from the HBO-branded-tie-in-underwear you can buy at Target, (Look! You can be just like Carrie underneath your Sportsgirl top!) an increase in alcohol sales in bars surrounding theatres (many have made deals with their closest Multiplex. Show your ticket for a $10 Cosmopolitan!) and some fabulous reviews. Some are thigh-thumpingly amazing. I've tried to steer away from reading ones that are unkind about physical appearance - where's the sisterhood in that? But there is some great writing about the representation of motherhood, sex, minorities, and the Middle East that's really worth reading. Why is this so great? Many of the women who are flocking to this movie, eager for their glitzy escapism, will know in the backs of their minds that all is not right here. 'What could all of those people be upset about?'

Well, Lindy West at Seattle's The Stranger is concerned that: 'SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human...and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car.' While famed film reviewer Roger Ebert highlights just how shallow these woman have become: 'Their defining quality is consuming things. They gobble food, fashion, houses, husbands, children, vitamins and freebies.' Wajahat Ali, writing at Film Salon derides the film as: 'cinematic Viagra for Western cultural imperialists'. Mel Campbell (at Crikey) attended an Australian premiere and noted the: 'desperation of the various brands involved to one-up each other in the product-placement stakes.'

On the flip side, Erika K, the blogger behind The Feminista Files, is boycotting the film, but wants it to make money. Why? 'Because if it doesn't Hollywood will say female-centric movies -- which never cost nearly as much as action flicks -- don't make economic sense and they'll stop greenlighting them...' What to do then?
We can hope that all of the attention on this film will force us to question how women, motherhood and minorities are represented in other media sites...or maybe, just maybe some female sitting in a darkened Hoyts might think to herself: Gee, this doesn't really speak to my life experience, maybe I should try to seek out a film that's more about what I'm going through?...Maybe I should demand that one of those is made?...Maybe I should write it myself!